At Reonomy, we believe that the future of CRE marketing undoubtedly includes SMS.

It can be the “caulk” that takes your outreach from spotty and uneven to flawless. Incorporating text into your day-to-day can take your property owner response rates to entirely new levels.

The Path to 10x Response Rates from Owners

Increasing your response rates isn’t simply a matter of using SMS. It requires the right mix of outreach and preparation.

When done effectively, though, SMS can be one of the main drivers leading you to multiply your responses. So then, without further ado…

Reonomy’s four-step path to 10x response rates from property owners:

Make sure you’re reaching out to the right property owners.

Strive for maximum personalization.

Use SMS as a driver of other outreach mediums.

Don’t be annoying. Be reasonable.

1. Make sure you’re reaching out to the right property owners.

The better-suited a property owner is for what you’re proposing, the more likely they are to respond to any kind of outreach, plain and simple. You need to make sure you’re targeting the right owners.

A Reonomy property owner search helps you identify owners in any U.S. county by name or address, or based on the sales history, debt history, tenants, and building and lot specs of their assets.

You can find very specific owners individually or in bulk.

For example, let’s say that you know a “John Smith,” who owns a plot of land on E Connecticut Dr. in Salt Lake City, Utah. You can either search “John Smith,” or search the address if known.

In another scenario, you might search for residential vacant lots in Salt Lake City, Utah in between 0.5 and 1 acres in lot area, that haven’t sold in the last 10 years—you do so, but only find one property of interest.

If you’re sending an SMS to just one owner, you can copy property owner mobile numbers straight from Reonomy and drop them right into your messaging app in just a few touches.

For messaging in bulk, whether it’s two or two thousand properties, you can export a full list of search results garnered in any Reonomy search (easier done on a laptop or desktop).

By doing that and selecting, “break out contacts into a separate list,” you’ll have a fully refined, hyper-targeted list of property owners along with their mobile numbers.

With a more refined audience, you’re assuring yourself that your outreach is starting off on the right foot.

2. Strive for maximum personalization.

So, now that you know you have your audience, it’s time to make it about them.

In Reonomy, you can quickly work your way through the building and lot, ownership, tenant, sales, debt, and tax information of each property in an owner’s portfolio, then take away hyper-specific tidbits to make sure your SMS message is for them, and only them.

Instead of sending a vague text about how your investment company can provide a great deal to an owner, you can send a message that sounds more like the following:

“Hi John—Tucker, here, from XYZ Co. I see you own a plot of land on E Connecticut Dr. and think I can offer you some money on top of what you paid. Would you be interested in chatting more about this?”

No property owner should ever read your text message and think, “Wait, what? What does this person want?”

3. Use SMS as a driver of other outreach mediums.

SMS can also fill the gaps and boost your overall outreach, and can be used when phone calls and emails simply aren’t working.

Instead of trying to re-engage with a property owner through emails they may never see or by calling on numbers they don’t recognize, build out a hyper-specific text that references your previous interaction.

Your re-engagement text might read something like this:

“Hey John, Tucker, here, from XYZ Co. We spoke on the phone about a week ago about your E Connecticut Dr lot. I think I can offer some money on top of what you paid for it. Let me know when you’re available to reconnect!”

They won’t be wondering who is texting them, and in the case of SMS, will be much more likely to read it, and much more likely to respond. Furthermore, you can use that opportunity to schedule a meeting all through text.

How about a quick Reonomy anecdote?

Tucker, a Reonomy Sales Development Rep, recently spoke to a prospect on the phone that said they wanted to schedule a demo, but wanted to check their schedule first before getting back to him.

But, they didn’t, even after a few follow-up calls and emails. Does that mean they lost interest? Not quite. Not in this case.

A few days later, Tucker reached out via text, and just like that, a response. A few more messages back and forth, and the prospect was scheduled for a demo.

SMS allows you to nudge owners in one direction or another, keep you fresh in their mind, and crack their busy day-to-day. Use it to schedule meetings, re-engage with them, and to keep in touch when they’re on the move.

4. Don’t be annoying. Be reasonable.

This sounds simple, but can be difficult at times if you’re being ghosted by a property owner that seems perfect for your business.

Just because texting is easy doesn’t mean you should fire off more than one per day. If an owner is going to respond, they’ll almost always do so immediately. So be concise, be direct, and keep your business reputation in mind—don’t overload a property owner with text messages.

The Future of Marketing?

SMS is an existing trend that is nothing short of massive. It just hasn’t caught on across all-fronts, including in marketing.

Yet.

There is no reason to sit back and wait in CRE. Texting owners is cheap, easy, and convenient for everyone involved.

If you want to boost your response rates from property owners, we suggest you start taking advantage of SMS today.

Reonomy is leveraging the power of data and technology to transform the world’s largest asset class - commercial real estate. By structuring the world of property, people and company data we’re able to deliver actionable insights to our customers.